


harder than doubt had bargained with

by cupcakee_emma



Series: breathe (let it out) [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Abuse, Blind Alexander, Cancer, Car Accidents, Disabled Character, F/F, F/M, Henry Laurens' A+ Parenting, Herc and Laf are only mentioned - Freeform, Historical Inaccuracy, Human Disaster John Laurens, John wants to die tbh, John's got a prosthetic, M/M, Minor Character Death, Modern AU, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Character, Trans John, also this mentions unsafe binding, au where they're all disabled, i just didn't write that part, i promise that john realizes he messed up and he fixes it, no graphic descriptions but it's ~definitely there~
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:41:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupcakee_emma/pseuds/cupcakee_emma
Summary: they were all a little bit messed up, but somehow they found each other.//title from Breathe by Daveed Diggs





	harder than doubt had bargained with

**Author's Note:**

> A little AU I've been working on - I got the first part done, finally. I'm going to publish the backstories of all of the characters, and John is first up!

John was nine the first time his world really changed. Sure, he’d suffered small losses - an Aunt he’d only seen once or twice, friends moving away. But he never knew what loss actually was, not until that day.

It was almost ironic. It was a family day - everyone was piled into their van: his Mom and Dad (his Dad driving), Martha and Mary Eleanor in the middle, and him and James in the back. James was only six - still in his booster seat. He was so happy, in just a month he’d have been out of it. The day was supposed to be fun - they were all going into the city to the zoo, and after they would go to see a new movie that had come out that they’d all been dying to watch. Their plans had ended up changing, though.

 _“I’m alive-” his mother choked_ out, _after the terrible sound of metal scraping against metal had ended. The impact was on the left side, where James, Martha, and his Mother were - a car had driven straight into them. His father’s response came rather quickly, sounding less pained. He heard Mary Eleanor and Martha, both sounding small and scared.  
_  
_He didn’t hear James._

_“I-I’m here,” he breathed out, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “My arm, it hurts.”_

_“I know, baby, help is coming soon,” his mother reassured him. He couldn’t turn his head. He couldn’t bring himself to turn to check on James - he was too afraid._

John could still remember Martha screaming, even though it had been an entire ten years since the accident. He could remember the radio still playing, the smell of gasoline and smoke. He could remember the pain he felt, the pain he still felt in his left arm that wasn’t there anymore. He remembered hearing the voices of everyone, saying they were alive - everyone but little sweet James, only six years old, who would have been out of his booster seat the next month. He couldn’t bring himself to turn his head to see what happened to him.

The second time his world changed, he was eleven. The year before, his mother was diagnosed - breast cancer. None of them had gotten over the grief they felt for James, not that they ever would. It hit their Dad the hardest, so he started on the alcohol - it was barely months after the accident. But Eleanor fought, she fought like hell. “I won’t let my kids lose anybody else.” So she fought like hell, started chemo right away and had surgeries.

She couldn’t keep her promise, though. She was in the hospital when it happened, she had enough medication to where she wasn’t in pain - just tired. So, so tired. The irony to it - because of course, what’s a bit of loss without any irony? It was the chemo that killed her, not the cancer. Her last words were to Mary Eleanor, telling her to take care of the kids - the kids being John and Martha.

_“M-Mom?” John murmured, squeezing her hand - the heart monitor was flatlining, and despite only being eleven, he knew what happened. He knew that she didn’t want the doctors to bring her back, so they wouldn’t. He knew that this was the end, that he’d never hear his Mother’s voice again._

_The funeral wasn’t too hard for John - he knew that his Mom wasn’t really there in the casket.That she was somewhere else. He didn’t know if it was Heaven like his Dad always said, but he knew that she was somewhere better._

At fourteen, it happened again. John knew he wasn’t a girl. Really, he had always known he wasn’t a girl - he never liked his breasts, the dresses he was forced to wear, makeup. But he pushed his feelings back, because he couldn’t afford to deal with them for awhile. At twelve, he had gotten his hair chopped off, telling his father that he wanted to donate it to kids in need - it worked well enough. He began wrapping his chest in ACE bandages, liking the way it looked flat. He would wear baggy jeans and sweatshirts. He found out the word for it was “transgender” and he had never been happier.

He told Martha and Mary Eleanor first - and they were happy for him, accepting. They began to call him John instead of Julia, began referring to him as their brother - he felt happy, he felt complete - until he told his Father. He would have run - he would have, if he didn’t have Martha to take care of. He couldn’t stand the thought of leaving his sisters with more loss than they’d already faced. So he grit his teeth and took the blows, until he was bruised and bloody and broken - and he never brought it up around his father again.

_“Jacky, what did he do to you?” Mary Eleanor murmured, wiping a drop of blood off of his lip. “Lay down, I’m going to get some bandages - and some ibuprofen. You’re gonna need it.”_

_“Thanks, Mary,” he said softly, glancing at Martha who was asleep on the bed on the opposite side of the room. “I- I appreciate it.”_

_“Anything for my little brother.”_

At sixteen, he almost died. Again. This time, though, it was his own choice, what he wanted. It was Alexander who talked him down at three in the morning on Skype, despite the fact that he had exams the next day.

 _“John, this isn’t how you’re supposed to go,” Alexander said softly, his eyebrows furrowed. “You haven’t made your legacy yet.”_  
  
_“Legacy? Hah. I’m never going to be anybody, Alex.”_

_“That’s a lie. John, you’re such a bright person. You’re bright and radiant and you’re so intelligent. You’re going to get out of your house in two years, and you’re going to make it. We’ll all make it.”_

He met Alexander at a camp for disabled kids, when he was nine and his Mother enrolled him before he had his prosthetic. He wasn’t happy about going to the camp, and neither was the blind kid with the cute dog - so naturally, they became friends. Best friends, really. And John realized when he was thirteen that he had feelings for Alexander, along with two of their other friends - he pushed the feelings back, much like he did with being a boy - he couldn’t be gay, and he definitely couldn’t like more than one person. His Dad would murder him.

Despite pushing the feelings back, he came home from camp when he was seventeen with three boyfriends. His sisters were more than happy for him, they were ecstatic, really. “So I have four brothers now?” Martha exclaimed when he shared the news. Mary Eleanor was more wary - “I want to talk to them. I want to let them know that if they hurt you, I will end them.”

So yeah, John loved his sisters.

He got out at eighteen. He made it to Boston to stay with Lafayette and wait, for Alexander and Hercules. He managed to get a job at a local grocery store, and he’d enrolled himself in Columbia with a major in art and a minor in biology. He lived as John Laurens - nobody knew about Julia, and nobody treated him differently because of his arm (or lack of). He lived with one of his boyfriends, and he was happy. Alex hadn’t lied to him - he made it out. He made it.

**Author's Note:**

> Alexander is next. Then Laf, then Herc. After them, I'm not really sure. Feedback is appreciated!


End file.
